Treesia Kan: The Method toward Self Actualization

A mother of 3 highly successful silicon valley sons — Justin Kan, Daniel Kan and Damien Kan — Auntie Treesia is an amazingly inspiring person you’d love to hear from. 

In this episode, we talked about:

  • Her struggles early on as an Indonesian Immigrant in China in the 1960s, an immigrant in Malaysia, and later the US.
  • How she views goals vs milestones – of not selling yourself short and break down big problems into small problems 
  • How her view changed over time and found the right way to live 
  • Her parenting philosophy – life is all about having fun! Responsibilities vs privileges

“If you can love yourself, your true self, not the one in a suit or dress, whoever you are, if we can embrace and love that person, then out of that, will come everything else. Because if you can love yourself, you can love other people. If you can love other people, you can share good things with them.”

Treesia Kan went to University of Washington, where she graduated with a BS in physics and got a master’s in computer science.” Treesia would go on to get a job at Digital Equipment Corporation and later start her own real estate business as a real estate professional.


Wisdoms Takeaway

  • Life is a continuum of polishing, polishing and adding on until you self-actualize. 
  • We live as a balance, we have responsibilities and privileges. If you have more responsibilities, you have more privileges. 
  • Break stuff into small problems, so can achieve the goals/milestones 
  • Success and failure doesn’t mean anything to me, reward is a bonus but if you aim for experience, you get all those 
  • Keep your eye on the ball, keep moving 
  • Whatever your heart desires, if you truly live out of your heart, you will receive it. 
  • If you love what you do, just do it. I don’t see that it’s work at all if you have fun. 
  • Don’t forget to be a citizen of the world as well 
  • One thing I wish for the younger generation is patience.

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